Renting vs Buying

Renting instead of buying is not a new idea. However the British Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) believe that renting could be the secret weapon in fighting climate change and is calling for a fifth of all household spending to be converted to renting by 2020. In Britain it is predicted this change would result in a reduction of 13 million tonnes of CO2 a year. (Source Dom Post: 6/11/2009). In our household we tend to keep items for a long time and buy a lot of items second hand so we wouldn’t be great candidates for renting but I think lending is also a good way of reducing waste and saving money. Often family members live close together and each own the same item – it would be easy to lend items and just one household purchase the item. For instance we were given lots of glasses for our wedding years ago. When family members need extra glasses for special events they borrow ours rather than purchase glasses. We own a slow cooker which my mother borrows rather than buy her own as we both don’t use it full time. Items such as big cake tins for cooking the Xmas cake are often used only once a year, very easy to share around families. Two families in our family unit share a cat cage – it is an item used very few times in a year. It doesn’t work for everything as some items wear down with frequent use and other items require people to use them very carefully but it may be worth looking at for your family. Of course some families have people who don’t look after items or forget to give items back!